Vegetable Fritters with Mint & Coriander Chutney

Vegetable Fritters or Pakoras are a favorite among Indians. Predominantly served as a snack during tea times, parties or gatherings, these vegetable fritters are basically vegetables dipped in a combination of Bengal gram flour and rice flour batter with other ingredients and then deep fried. Oven baking these fritters will give an equally good result. Alternatively, you can try using Air Fryer. 

Ingredients ( for roughly 30 pakoras)
2 medium sized potatoes scrubbed clean and sliced thin in rounds
1 medium onion, cut horizontally and separated into rings
2 small brinjals, sliced thin in rounds

3 cups of Bengal gram flour
1 cup rice flour (for extra crispiness)
2 tsps. salt
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp pakora seasonings
1 and 1/3  cup water

Method
Get a medium sized mixing bowl and place gram flour, rice flour, salt, chilli powder and pakora seasonings.
Make a well in the center and pour in the water.
Whisk all the ingredients together until you reach a thick batter.
Drop batches of the vegetables into the batter.
Heat a deep frying pot of oil and drop vegetables one by one and fry till golden brown. Drain the oil from the fritters on paper towels.
Serve hot with Mint and Coriander Chutney (recipe below) or any type of hot sauce.
Leftover batter can be stored in the fridge and thawed for an hour to yield more fritters the next day ( that's what I did!!).

Mint  & Coriander Chutney (yields 1 cup)
1 cup mint leaves
1 cup coriander leaves
1/2 inch ginger
1 green chilli
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup yoghurt

Method for Mint & Coriander Chutney
Place all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. This chutney can be served with any Indian fried fritters or Samosas or even as a side with main meals. Because of the yoghurt it doesn't last last very long - at most 2 days in the fridge.

Oven Baking
The batter has be thicker, (thicker than pancake consistency). Otherwise, the pakoras will be all runny and not form a smooth heap when you place them on the oven tray. Reduce water to 1 cup only.
Preheat the oven to 500 deg F.
Drop spoonfuls of the pakora batter onto the oven tray and bake for 10mins. Then flip over and bake for another 10 mins. Fritters won't look as round as the fried fritters but the taste will be the same and our heart will surely thank us for this!!